The Biden administration said it will review Enbridge’s controversial Line 5 pipeline, as arrests of Indigenous water protectors fighting to stop the company’s construction of it’s Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline continue. The Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it would mount an extensive review of the Line 5 pipeline, which lies on the floor of the environmentally ultra-sensitive Straits of Mackinac, a move welcomed by Native groups and environmental advocates.
In what is now Minnesota, police arrested multiple water protectors at a prayer lodge built on lands guaranteed for use by Ojibwe people for hunting, fishing and gathering under the 1855 Treaty. Other water protectors locked themselves to drilling equipment on Wednesday after Enbridge began drilling operations near Red Lake River without a tribal monitor present on Monday. “I come from stolen Monacan and Tutelo land where the Mountain Valley Pipeline is being constructed. I believe that from the hills to the headwaters we need to act in solidarity with all people resisting extraction in their communities,” one of those water protectors said in a statement. (Line 5: AP, Politico Pro $, Reuters, The Hill, Detroit Free Press, Michigan Radio, Detroit News, E&E $, Washington Examiner; Line 3: Indian Country Today, Truthout)